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Chapter 19
Previous Chapter “And so we see that when we learn about the science of evolution, we must also consider the evolution of that science!” The lecturer paused to let the wordplays sink in. He slowly panned his head around the room, giving the impression that he was making brief eye contact with every gaze in the lecture hall. “Before our current theory of evolution, it was believed that an organism’s acquired traits were able to be passed onto its offspring. That is, if you worked out and developed a muscular physique, you’d give birth to muscular offspring. This theory was proposed by Lamarck and has since been debunked.” The man standing at the podium paced from side-to-side, gesturing with his hands as he excitedly spoke. He clearly wanted to make his presentation lively and prevent students from zoning out. The efforts were wasted on Kaz as his head nodded forwards in fatigue against his own will. A jab in his ribcage prevented him from instantly falling asleep. The voice from the front of the room continued. “That’s not to say that it is easy to discern truth from speculation, especially not in the scientific world! Darwin himself proposed the hypothesis of pangenesis, which borrowed from Lamarck’s flawed theory.” It had been a long time since Kaz had sat in a class. The environment just didn’t suit him; the lecturer was doing his best to engage the students and keep their attention, but Kaz did not feel comfortable just passively sitting and absorbing information. The lecture hall was packed with over a hundred students eagerly taking down every word that came out of the instructor’s mouth. The notebook in front of him was mostly blank, save for a picture of a monkey evolving while scratching its rear. Kaz allowed his eyes to close without moving his body, in an attempt to fool the watchful torturer next to him. “… Because of this, we can see that our own scientific theories concerning evolution may be flawed as well… “ It was coming. The sweet, soft tug on his mind to bring it into the blissful dream world was a welcome feeling. “… The inheritance of abilities, especially powerful ones derived from mutations, is of key interest to us scientists…” The world was already reshaping itself in his mind. Beautiful colors swirled together to create the stunning and captivating scene that would be the stage for his daydream. All he needed now was to visualize a young female companion into the world he created and everything would be- Jab. A sharp pain snapped Kaz out of his comfort zone. The lecture hall came back into view. The voice of the pacing orator in front of the classroom became audible again. “… And our question of greatest interest today will be this. Can we genetically transfer advantageous mutations to others? And if so, can we have them develop subsequent abilities afterwards? Should we be able to accomplish this, humanity as we know it may never be the same again.” Kaz turned to the stone-faced person sitting next to him. “That last one really hurt!” Kuroi continued to look at the lecturer while twirling the pen he used to poke Kaz in his fingers. “Maybe you shouldn’t fall asleep in the first day of class then.” After the conversation regarding admission into Lance Academy, Kaz’s coworkers insisted that he enroll in Terrace Grove’s community college’s summer session to brush up on academic material. Only, Kaz didn’t see any point in trying to learn about a subject that he had no interest in. Kuroi, on the other hand, seemed to be fascinated by what the instructor had to say, and took offense that Kaz would fall asleep in the midst of enlightenment. “And that’s all for today. Read chapters one through three, see you all next class.” Almost every student in the lecture hall simultaneously stood up to leave the moment the instructor finished his last sentence. ‘’So this is what college is like,’’ Kaz thought to himself. He felt that he’d rather be working. There was pudding to be made. The image of Cindy and Kyosuke puffing out their cheeks and balancing on their heads in an attempt to figure out his secret to making it popped into his mind. Kaz shook his head. I wouldn’t put it past them. “Come on Kaz, is all the way across campus,” Kuroi said in a hurried tone. ... ... It was a different lecture hall, but the room was still packed with well over a hundred eager students. Kaz tried to make himself audible amidst the incomprehensible symphony of excited chatter around them. “Isn’t quantum physics supposed to be really hard? What’s with all the people?” Kuroi continued to stare straight ahead in his seat. “It’s the first day of class, and everyone’s curious about the cool sounding classes. Once they realize that it actually involves work there will be a frenzy of people dropping the course. “ Kaz reckoned that he would probably be among that frenzy. The cacophony of chatter slowly faded out as a man in a tweed coat briskly walked through the front entrance and set down his bag. He was sporting a beard, thin-framed glasses, and a large bald spot to go along with his receding hairline. The man had the appearance of the stereotypical professor. Kaz braced himself for another battle with slumber. ... ... The professor looked around the classroom. There was at least ten times the number of students he had been expecting to see. He had been wondering why the lecture hall assigned for the class was so large. “Welcome to the first class of quantum physics. Now, for some reason the school forgot to set prerequisite requirements, so I suspect that blunder might be a reason for the overwhelming enrollment I see in front of me.” A small wave of chuckles passed throughout the crowd of students. “But rest assured that this class is indeed going to be rigorous. If you do not have the correct mathematical background, you’ll find even the introductory material to be nigh impossible. If you are going to drop, then I suggest you do so as early as possible. Disappointed grumbles filled the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a young man with dyed hair bobbing his head with his eyes closed. “But for today, since it’s the first class, we’ll discuss the subject in layman’s terms. Quantum physics is a field that seeks answers to the questions that we can’t solve by going to the nanoscopic level. This is an entirely different realm from what we would call real life, and it is at this level that the laws of nature and physics begin to break down. For this class only, I’ll spend the rest of the time period answering any questions you may have in the hopes of inspiring future physicists.” A surge of hands shot up. The professor was taken aback. “Okay, it looks like we have a lot of enthusiasm today. I guess I’ll go with you there in the front.” He gestured towards a girl wearing plaid in the front row. Her voice quivered with excitement as she spoke. “Professor, there was a recent breakthrough on the news that quantum physicists found out that time travel could be possible. What is your opinion?” The professor paused for a moment with furrowed eyebrows. His pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Is that what this was all about? “Is this why there are so many of you today? Even on the first day of class I only get about a tenth of the size I’m seeing now.” A fluctuating wave of nods rolled through the crowd. The professor let out a sigh as he looked around at all of the eager faces in front of him. “Well, I hate to break it to you this way, but those were only simulations. Time travel is unfortunately still an impossibility for us.” The class remained silent, staring at him. The professor took the hint to continue his explanation. “First off, like I said, in the realm of quantum physics, natural laws break down. What we’re seeing there, even if they weren’t just simulations, would not carry over too well into our realm. “ A voice piped up. A sea of heads turned to look at a curly haired young man. “Wait, but if it’s shown that it is possible at any level for time travel to exist, wouldn’t it only be a matter of time before we could develop it into something usable?” The professor’s eyebrows were almost completely joined. Kids these days. “Usable? Time travel is simply not possible at our level due to not only physical limitations but also to its very paradoxical nature.” A tan-skinned girl who had her hand up the entire time decided to be heard. “But professor, the researchers in the news found out that the grandfather paradox didn’t necessarily hold with the photons in the experiment. Even if you say that time travel isn’t possible in real life, what would happen if one actually were to go back in time and kill their grandparents?” “What? This class is about learning what’s actually provable, not discussing trivial speculations! It is really pointless to talk about this since not only do we have to consider how an entire person, which is no longer in the quantized realm but is magnitudes of magnitudes larger than the particles that those researchers were running simulations with, would be able to be sent back in time, but we would also have to consider how that person would even survive such an experience!” There was a visible impatience in the professor’s voice. The sea of hands only grew larger. Many students were speaking up simultaneously, resulting in short bursts of incomprehensible speech that were quickly followed by awkward apologies. “Please, please, wait to be called on before speaking,” the professor projected his voice above the chatter in the room, albeit wearily. He pointed at an Asian student who was practically jumping out of his seat. “Me? Oh yes, professor, my question is, why are you so against even just speculating about what the future holds?” “It’s a waste of time! Any physicist versed in string theory would conclude that there is no point in discussing time travel outside of science fiction and magic!” The student did not falter. “Well, we are all just college students curious for an answer. Shouldn’t your job be to support our curiosity rather than tell us what the limits are? And speaking of magic, our current technology could easily be considered as such by people from just a century ago just because we broke the limits that they had back then. If history has shown us anything, it would be that to progress, we must challenge the limits that are imposed on us!” There was an outbreak of applause. Hundreds of students were nodding and voicing their approval. The professor shook his head. These kids just get more and more rambunctious by the year. However, he did not like where the subject matter was heading. “You know what, fine. Since it is indeed my job to instruct eager minds such as yourselves, I will openly answer any questions you may have. But! We simply do not have time to discuss time travel within this class period due to how complex the subject matter is.” A wave of audible disappointment coursed throughout the lecture hall. The professor ignored it and continued. “However, feel free to ask me any other questions you may have.” A voice from the back of the class. “Professor, I heard that you do research on paradoxes and zero division. Could you explain to us what you are working on?” What?! How? The professor was once again taken aback. The voice sounded eerily familiar. It belonged to a female. The person in question was seated in the back row, and all he could tell from where he was standing was that she was fair-skinned. Was that a smirk on her face? The hall filled with eager chatter. “Paradoxes?” “Zero division? Like dividing by zero? What do you think of this, Bill?“ “Don’t be stupid Bradley, that’s impossible!” “You can do research on that kind of stuff?” The professor loudly cleared his throat. The chatter dwindled back down. “Well, I don’t know what you are talking about, as nowhere in my background does that kind of information appear.” A Black student raised his hand. The professor pointed towards him, in the hopes that he would support his attempts to change the topic. “If you are doing research into zero division, does that mean that you believe there is a possible solution to it?” No such luck. He glanced at his watch. Only a little longer until he would be free from this torment. He supposed that he would need to give a satisfactory answer. “Alright, before we get to that, who here thinks that it’s impossible to divide by zero?” Most of the class raised their hands. The ones who didn’t appeared to be in thought. Perhaps they felt that it was a trick question. “This is strange. Only a moment ago, many of you were arguing that while time travel is impossible, it still deserved to be questioned due to a new possibility. Many of you were adamant that it had to be addressed. And yet when the subject of zero division came up, I heard many people blurt out that it was impossible and pointless.” The entire class shifted in their seats. These students did not understand what they were dealing with. “Now, rest assured that zero division is indeed impossible. Now, to see why, I’m going to ask everyone to turn on their visual brains and imagine this simple equation.” Across the vast room, hundreds of eyelids closed. The professor marveled at how quickly the class was able to calm down after the rowdiness that they had exhibited earlier. The pursuit of intellectual knowledge did indeed separate man from beast. “Imagine a number. Any number, so let’s call it ‘x’. Now imagine a division line, and a zero underneath it. So we have a fraction, ‘x’ over zero. This should equal something. So imagine an equal sign next to that fraction, and we’ll put a question mark for what the fraction equals.” The professor paused briefly. He hoped that by this time in their lives, the students were able to do this much. “And now let’s imagine this. If this equation were true, even with the unknowns, we could multiply zero over to the other side with basic algebra. And what do we have?” Murmurs rippled through the crowd. “That’s right! We would have ‘x’ equals a question mark times zero. But anything times zero is zero! Does ‘x’ then equal zero?” Heads were nodding. “Alright, since we set ‘x’ to be any number, let’s have it equal to five. Replace ‘x’ with five, and now we have five equals a question mark times zero. Replace five with any number, such as a million. Something times zero equals a million. Can we see the problem here?” Eyes were opening. The class seemed to understand this basic explanation. “As you can see, one of the key reasons why zero division is impossible is that it automatically causes an inconsistency. Something times nothing equals something. This directly goes against the rules of nature, physics, and, well, everything. Saying that zero division is possible is as flawed as saying that you can create something out of nothing. Religious beliefs aside, of course.” The professor glanced at his watch again. Three minutes to go. He did not want to allow this topic to drag on any further. “Alright, we’ll end our first class here. In the future, I will only allow discussions of this nature on days after a midterm, and only if the class average is sufficiently high. See you all next time.” Next Chapter